For me this week has been all about insurance. I am possibly the world’s most unlucky person when it comes to travel Insurance, in my 22 years of life I have made 5 separate claims. So I have an interest in finding a good quality policy that will actually pay out if I need it to. Not saying I am going to claim but knowing my luck…

The insurance required is fairly specific and has to give certain cover levels, specifically:

Medical benefits of at least $50,000 per accident or illness

Repatriation of remains in the amount of $7,500

Expenses associated with the medical evacuation of the exchange visitor to his/her home country in the amount of $10,000 and

A deductible not to exceed $500 per accident or illness

More importantly it needs to cover for undertaking paid work and for the fact that when arriving we do not have a return flight booked, only a one-way ticket.

Yummy Jobs suggest 2 different providers STA Travel and Seven Corners. Given my previous history I made sure to read all the terms and conditions. Reading the STA travel terms I discovered something suspicious. In the exceptions section the terms say:

In respect of one-way journeys cover will cease 24 hours after arrival at the final destination

Which is fairly ambiguous as to whether the cover will be available if I only have a one-way flight booked. I rang STA travel to ask and they could not give me a straight answer so I am not going to risk it. As much as I trust Yummy Jobs I really don’t want to end up in the situation where if I came to claim they would say that I am not covered.

So the next option was Seven Corners. They offer a range of cover levels with different deductible amounts. I am keen to minimise the deductible so that if I claim it does not cost too much. Seven Corners offer a $0 deductible which at first glance looks like a great deal however there is also a co-insurance which means that you pay 20% of the first $5000 that you claim so for a major injury it could cost up to $1000 which is too much for me.

This left me with a difficult choice – insurance which might not cover due to the one-way flight or one that will be really expensive if I need to claim. I spoke to a few people I know who have spent time working in the USA and they pointed me the International Medical Group (IMG) who offer insurance specifically for J1 students and cultural exchange participants (which is the visa we use for the CRP) called the Patriot Exchange Program. It has all the necessary cover and only a $100 deductible and no co-insurance which is perfect for me. The other advantage is that if you buy more than 3 months with them you can extend the cover for up to 2 years. While I think I am probably going to take the Disney insurance after the 4th month it is nice to know that I can extend if necessary.

So after a long week of deciding I think I am going to go with the IMG insurance although I don’t need to buy that until much nearer the time so after a slightly stressful week of reading through the small print of travel insurance it is actually going to be months until I actually buy it. Well at least I got the looking out of the way!